What does a $55,000 pair of headphones sound like? Thanks to Sennheiser, you can now answer that question.
That’s right: Sennheiser created a set of headphones priced at a whopping $55,000.
The Sennheiser Orpheus headphones deliver sound via electro-static diaphragms. If you don’t know what that means, then it means they can produce transients (i.e. high frequency sounds) at an incredible speed.
If you don’t know what that means, then it means the Sennheiser headphones sound absolutely, ridiculously good.

How to Listen to the Headphones

To listen to Sennheiser’s $55,000 headphones, you need to be personally invited to use them by the company. The company unveiled the headphones to the public at CES 2016.
MaximumPC.com received an invite and described the process of listening to the headphones as a “ritual”:
“Listening to the Orpheus is a whole ritual in its own right. The process plus the knowledge of its cost definitely makes you preconditioned to how “good” the headphones sound. Pressing the power knob on the front of the marble platform starts the 24-second procedure that brings the Orpheus to life.”

After pressing that power button, vacuum tubes and control knobs smoothly slide out. It’s like listening to headphones in a sci-fi universe.

The Sound

So what do $55,000 headphones sound like? The electro-static diaphragms, as I mentioned above, produce audio at a high speed, which means they oscillate in a tight and controlled manner to produce accurate sound.
That means impeccable reproduction of mids and highs. As MaximumPC.com described after their listening experience,
“For mids and highs, the Orpheus can’t be beat. They’re that good. Even without a completely silent room, I could definitely appreciate the clarity being produced.”
But what about that bass?
The Orpheus’s bass isn’t like those loud, booming bass headphones you’d find in Best Buy that trick amateur audiophiles into thinking they’re really good headphones.

Instead, the Orpheus has the goal of re-creating tight, accurate bass with excellent extension.
When bass is produced, it vibrates the headphones on your head. At the same time, the bass isn’t boomy or overpowering. It doesn’t drown out other frequencies.
The headphones were unveiled at CES 2016.
What do you think? Would you ever spend $55,000 on a pair of headphones? Maybe if I won the Powerball…
Photos courtesy of Gizmodo.com